It is the best known and most well-loved
of all 154 sonnets. It is also one of the most direct in language and intent.
The poet starts the praise of his dear friend
without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend into that of
a perfect being. He is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the beginning
of the third quatrain (line 9), the speaker states with a renewed assurance that “thy eternal summer shall not fade” and that his friend
will preserve his beauty and even cheat Death and Time by becoming eternal. He achieves this through his sonnet. The
final couplet reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in
mankind, his lines too will live on, and ensure the immortality of the “fair
youth”.
Here and here you can read a short commentary on this sonnet.
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